If your Settlers of Catan games are anything like mine, pulling the Monopoly card inevitably leads to the dredging up of old slights and someone inevitably leaves the room swearing by the time Longest Road is awarded. (Also, this perplexing YouTube clip has attained nigh legendary status in my social circle while remaining vastly unappreciated everywhere else.)

That said, I'm looking forward to alienating my loved ones with and/or playing Star Trek Catan, a Federationized take of the resource trading board game.

This version replaces the resource cards of sheep, wheat, ore, brick, and wood with Dilithium, Tritanium, food, oxygen and water; towns with space stations; the robber with the Klingon Bird-of-Prey; and roads with caravans of spaceships. In addition, this version adds new character cards which influence play in unique ways:

The one new element in Star Trek Catan compared to the Settlers version is a set of character cards, each featuring one of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Scott, Uhura, Chekov, Chapel, Rand or Sarek. Each character card has two special powers that the holder can use on his turn, such as a forced trade.

I wager the Kirk card involves a wrestling match with an unwilling trading partner. The German release for Star Trek Catan has been announced thus far for March 2012 with the English translation hopefully on the way soon. Time to dust off the old Deutsch 101 in the meantime. If this version of the game involves a trip to the Romulan Obst-und-Gemüseladen, I can manage. For another Catan variant, check out Oil Springs of Catan.